[I]n the Bombay Army, `the Brahmin stands shoulder to shoulder in the
ranks, nay sleeps in the same tent with his Parwari [Mahar] soldier, and
dreams not of any objection to the arrangement.'

--Brigadier John Jacob, Views and Opinions, 1858.

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, is famous for being "the most highly educated
Untouchable in India." His education,[109]
encouraged and financed largely by the Gaikwad of Baroda, led to his role as the
Untouchable's chief spokesman, the founder of a political party for
Untouchables, and the moving spirit behind organizations, schools, and colleges
established for their uplift. One of Ambedkar's final acts was the initiation of
a Buddhist conversion movement that ultimately attracted more than 3 million
Untouchable adherents.[110]

This part of Ambedkar's story is well-known. However, his family's military
service in the British Raj is not widely acknowledged for creating an
environment that laid the foundation for his later success. Eleanor Zelliot, an
expert on Dr. Ambedkar and the Mahar movement, maintains, "[T]he hundred year
period of Mahar recruitment into British armies may well have been the single
most important factor, aside from economic reasons, in producing the Mahar
movement."[111]
This article examines the importance of military service in improving the social
status of Ambedkar's caste, the Mahars of Maharashtra. The focus is on their
relationship with the British.

The Mahars benefited from their participation in the British Army in a number
of ways. First, military service became "a significant part of caste élan and
mythology."[112]
The first section provides the historical evidence they use to establish their
credentials as a caste with martial traditions. The paper's second section
details the advantages, especially education, that accrued from military service
and discusses their access to the government that otherwise was unavailable to
Untouchables. The final section discusses the British decision to recruit only
"martial races," in which the Mahars were not included, for the British Indian
Army and the Mahars' efforts to gain reinstatement in the Army. The article does
not focus exclusively on Dr. Ambedkar, but uses him as a point of reference for
many of the examples given.

Early Military Participation

Eleanor Zelliot explains that the British gave Mahars the opportunity to seek
different occupations from their traditional role as a village servant. She
explains that before the arrival of the British,

Mahars had no special skill or craft, but performed necessary duties for
the village as watchmen, wall-menders, street-sweepers, removers of cattle
carcasses, caretakers of the burning ground, servants of any passing
governmental official.... Mahar service was essential for the village; his
status was low, his work menial, but his place was secure. With the coming of
the British and the spread of new ways of administration and communication,
the Mahar place in the village grew less important.[113]

Military service provided Mahars with the opportunity to move beyond their
traditional social position in the village. In fact, the Mahar tradition of
being in armies precedes the British Raj.

The recorded history of the Mahars' military achievements dates back to
Shivaji's Army in the 1600s.[114]
Cynthia Enloe, a noted sociologist who has written extensively on
ethnic-military relationships, states, "The best of all militaries in the eyes
of a state elite is one in which the most competent soldiers are also the most
politically reliable, because they have the greatest stake in the continuation
of the current system."[115]
The Mahars met this condition according to descriptions of their loyalty.
Colonel V. Longer, author of Forefront Forever: The History of the Mahar
Regiment, states:

There were a number of useful functions which the Mahars performed. Their
Argus eye; their daring tenacity and determination; their faithfulness,
loyalty and honesty; their courage and candour, were inestimable qualities
which were always held in respect and were for ever utilized to advantage by
the village .... In course of time, their voice carried great weight when
there were disputes over property as their evidence was considered most
accurate, intimate, and trustworthy.[116]

This sense of loyalty and trustworthiness led Shivaji to include Mahars as a
vital component of his army.

Shivaji, leader of the Maratha nation, fought for a Hindu empire, but using
Untouchables did not bother him. He "found the Mahars useful, for the wily
Maratha chief realized that the best way of obtaining the maximum results was to
mix up various castes in his garrison forces."[117]
He used the Mahars "to watch the jungles at the foot of the hill forts, act as
scouts and [they] kept the forts supplied with wood and fodder."[118]
This was the first exposure of the Mahars to an organized army that provided its
soldiers with steady pay and benefits. After Shivaji's death, Mahar units
continued to serve his descendants throughout the 1700s.[119]
Their experience with Shivaji and others encouraged them to seek similar
employment as sepoys of the British East India Company.

Ardythe Basham, in her detailed examination of the Mahars and the military,
found the perceived early martial history to be an important part of Mahar
identity. She concludes, "Whether or not these incidents are historically true,
they are widely accepted by the Mahars as part of their tradition, and now form
part of the official history of [today's] Mahar Regiment."[120]
The Mahars have often used this martial identity, rooted in the 1600s, to
legitimate their continued presence in the military.

Mahars began their service with the British in the 1750s. Stephen P. Cohen,
an expert on the Indian Army, discusses the importance of Mahars in the Bombay
Army in his seminal work, The Indian Army: Contribution to the Development of
a Nation. He writes that Mahars were

a sizeable portion of the armies of the Mahratta chieftain Shivaji, served
as hereditary local policeman, and were thus a "natural" martial class.
Heavily recruited in the premutiny years, the Mahars constituted a fifth to a
quarter of the entire Bombay Army.[121]

In addition to the size of the Mahar contingent, they were also praised for
their conduct as soldiers. The Mahars rewarded the British with the same loyalty
that Shivaji had enjoyed.

The Bombay Army fought in several battles, and in most, the Mahars were
recognized for their skills. Longer proclaims:

Much praise was showered on the Mahar Sepoys of the Bombay Army who endured
the rigours of difficult marches when rations were low and disease was high
among men and animals. Whether they were charging ahead or were besieged or
taken prisoner-of-war, whether they were storming fortresses or making
tactical withdrawals, they always stood steadfast by their officers and
comrades, never letting down the honour of their Regiments.[122]

The recorded history of their exploits, especially prior to the mutiny of
1857, supports this effusive adoration. Basham located evidence of Mahar
participation in the Second and "Third Anglo-Maratha War, the Second Anglo-Sikh
War and the Second Afghan War."[123]
The Mahars' exploits in these conflicts form an important part of their military
lore.

The Mahar participation in the battle of Koregaon on 1 January 1818 is
the most famous, and also the best documented, action involving Mahar soldiers.
This battle gave the British the advantage in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The
successful defense of Koregaon by

a small force of 500 men ... under the command of Capt. F. F. Staunton
[who] fought without rest or respite, food or water continuously for twelve
hours against a large force of 20,000 Horse and 8,000 Infantry of [Maratha
Leader] Peshwa Baji Rao II who was threatening the British garrisons at Kirkee
and Poona.

Mahars dominated Staunton's unit. The Peshwa's troops inexplicably withdrew
that evening, despite their overwhelming numbers, giving the British an
important victory. The men of the 2/1st Regiment Bombay Native Infantry,
including many Mahars, who fought in this battle, were honored for their
bravery. The official report to the British Resident at Poona recalls the
"heroic valour and enduring fortitude" of the soldiers, the "disciplined
intrepidity" and "devoted courage and admirable consistency" of their actions.[124]
Further, the action is commemorated by a monument, with the names of twenty-two
Mahars killed there, erected at the site of the battle and by a medal issued in
1851. Today, the monument still "serves as a focal point of Mahar heroism."[125]
Similar anecdotes are recorded in the written histories of the Mahar Regiment
and Bombay Army. All demonstrate that most Mahars soldiers were dedicated and
courageous.

In addition to Army units on land, the Mahars formed a vital component of the
Bombay Army's Marine Battalion. This unit's history is well documented and
provides numerous examples of Mahar actions,[126]
including several acts of bravery by Mahars in the battalion. In September 1810,
during the Second Maratha War, several Mahars proved their loyalty when captured
by the French Navy. The French tried to

induce their prisoners to enter their own service, a practice which enjoyed
some success with Irish, Madrassi and Bengali troops. On this occasion, the
Bombay sepoys [soldiers] were shown the captured Bengal and Madras Sepoys
dressed in French uniforms and enjoying considerable privileges and luxuries,
whereupon the Bombay Detachment started abusing them as being dead to all
shame that they could forget the oath and desert their colours.

The upshot was that they were very roughly treated and some were severely
wounded. To the seventeen survivors who reached Bombay a special medal was given
and of this number twelve were Mahars.[127]

This is just one of many cases where Mahars distinguished themselves as a
part of the Marine Battalion and is another part of the martial history that the
Mahars used to legitimize their important role in the British Indian Army. But,
in the wake of the 1857 mutiny and threats from Russia, the British reexamined
their recruitment policies. The Mahars were a casualty of this new thinking.

The Mahars Delistment

Despite the Mahars' long martial history, the British ceased recruiting them
in 1893. The Bombay and the other Presidency Armies were reevaluated following
the 1857 mutiny. The Peel Commission[128]
first examined class composition of the armies in 1858. One report to the
Commission "emphasized that `we cannot practically ignore it (the caste system),
so long as the natives socially maintain it.'"[129]
This led to the discrimination against the Mahars and other low-caste groups as
well as some Brahman castes which were considered unreliable.

General Lord Roberts, while not originating the concept of martial races, was
instrumental in implementing a strategy of building "class regiments."
Recruiting policies were rewritten, and the Bombay Army "was notified that the
Mahars, together with a number of other classes of the Bombay Army, would no
longer be recruited to the Army."[130]
Lord Roberts recorded his rational in his autobiography, Forty-One Years in
India. He writes:

I have no doubt whatever of the fighting powers of our best Indian troops;
I have a thorough belief in, and admiration for, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Dogras,
Rajputs, Jats and, selected Mahomadans; I thoroughly appreciate their
soldierly qualities; brigaded with British troops, I would be proud to lead
them against any European enemy.[131]

Roberts thought that the first step to making the Indian Army was "to
substitute men of the more warlike and hardy races for the Hindustani sepoys of
Bengal, the Tamils and Telagus [sic] of Madras, and the so-called
Mahrattas [sic] of Bombay." He was convinced that

In the British Army the superiority of one regiment over another is mainly
a matter of training; the same courage and military instinct are inherent in
English, Scotch, and Irish alike, but no comparison can be made between the
martial value of a regiment recruited amongst the Gurkhas of Nepal or the
warlike races of Northern India, and of one recruited from the effeminate
peoples of the south.[132]

The Mahars believed that their martial history demonstrated their abilities
as warriors, but the British had made their decision. Mahars could only enlist
as bandsmen or clerks. This would not provide the same opportunities for
promotion, and allow little change in their social status. As expected, the
Mahars felt the British had betrayed them after over 100 years of loyal service
to the British Raj.

Throughout India, there was controversy about which groups should remain in
the Army. The Mahars had support from some British soldiers, including three
commanders who recommended their continued service. The commander of the 2nd
Grenadiers argued that

'the Parwari [Mahar] is of far better fighting material than the Deccani
Mussulman," and suggested that the Marine Battalion might be made a class
regiment of Parwaries. The commanding officer of the 9th Bombay Infantry thought
that a regiment of Parwaries, especially from the Deccan, would "give a very
good account of itself."

The Commanding officer of the 19th Bombay Infantry
stated that:

"They are possessed of as much soldierly quality as many castes of whom
much higher opinions are entertained."[133]

However, their assistance was not enough to overcome the sentiments of Lord
Roberts and other senior officers of the British Indian Army.

Longer provides an excellent commentary on the impact of the decision on the
Mahars. He writes:

The excellent system with its cosmopolitan composition, which had worked
out over the years, was dismantled and destroyed. The Mahars, who had proudly
carried the Colours of various Regiments of the Bombay Army, were crestfallen
and heartbroken. For years they had provided abundant evidence of their
courage, resolution, perseverance, constancy, and fidelity. When they bade
farewell to arms there were eight Subedar-Majors, 62 Subedars, 34 Jemadars,
and a host of Non-Commissioned Officers and Sepoys of the Mahar community who
had served with distinction in the Bombay Army.[134]

The Mahars would continue to fight for the right to re-enlist in the Indian
Army. They were loath to lose the benefits that the military provided.
Furthermore, the education provided to the soldiers had created an educated
cadre that would transfer their skills into political action. However, there
were few Mahars left in the Army by the beginning of World War I.

Benefits Of Military Service

Eleanor Zelliot notes that the "emergence of Mahar leaders and a new spirit
of militancy in the 19th century was due in large measure to the influence of
education acquired in the military." The result was that

[d]uring the 19th and 20th centuries, a substantial number of Mahars
removed themselves from their traditional village servant role. The
establishment of British rule in Bombay Presidency provided Mahars with the
opportunity for service in the army, employment in cotton mills, ammunition
factories, railroads, dockyards, construction work, and as servants in British
homes. The 1921 Census records that only 13.5 percent of the Mahar working
force of nearly 300,000 were employed in their traditional occupation even
though most Mahars maintained strong ties with their ancestorial village.[135]

The Mahars' ability to work among the British exposed them to Western ways,
and helped them to realize that their status as Untouchables did not keep them
from working in successful and satisfying occupations. They aggressively used
the advantages provided by their relationship with the British.

Military service provided important benefits to its soldiers. The benefits
include "pay and pensions, access to education and/or specialized training,
preferential access to employment, enhanced social status, and personal
satisfaction."[136]
For the Mahars, the access to education and increased social status was the most
important benefits. The best example of their results was Dr. Ambedkar.
Zelliot writes that Ambedkar's experiences were "[f]ree from the traditional
village role, his early life was spent among educated ex-army men, imbued with
the pride of soldiers and acquainted with a more sophisticated Hinduism than
that found in the village."[137]
In fact, Ambedkar extends much of the credit for the start of the movement to
improve the Untouchables' place in society to contact with the British Army. He
maintained:

Until the advent of the British, the Untouchables were content to remain
Untouchables .... In the army of the East India Company there prevailed the
system of compulsory education for Indian soldiers and their children, both
male and female. The education received by the Untouchables in the army ...
gave them a new vision and a new value. They became conscious that the low
esteem in which they had been held was not an inescapable destiny but was a
stigma imposed on their personality by the cunning contrivances of the priest.
They felt the shame of it as they ever did before and were determined to get
rid of it.[138]

It is indisputable that this access to education was helpful to Ambedkar, and
therefore, to all of India's Untouchable communities.

Ambedkar's family had extensive links to the military. Additionally, his
mother's "father and her six uncles were all Subedar Majors in the Army,"[139]
the highest rank that Indians could hold. Ambedkar's father also was a Subhedar
Major and

a full-fledged teacher trained at the Normal School then established by
Government for turning out teachers to impart education that was then
compulsory for the children as well as both male and female relations of the
military servants. For fourteen years Ramji Sakpal served as Headmaster in the
military school.[140]

Undoubtedly, the accomplishments of this family were exceptional.
Nonetheless, the availability of education had a positive effect on all members
of Mahars in the military, including women.[141]
Consequently, Basham concludes, "The loss of this education option with the loss
of their right of enlistment was therefore a real blow, not merely the loss of a
theoretical benefit which few actually received."[142]
The quality of life for soldiers and their families suffered because of the loss
of educational opportunities available through participation in the
military.

Mahars joined the military with the intent of improving their social status.
They were successful in this regard. As Basham explains:

Within the closed circle of the regiment, caste prejudice was, if not
actually absent, at least officially discouraged. According to army
regulations no distinction was made between soldiers on the basis of their
caste or community .... Mahar officers were able to command men of other
castes apparently without difficulty.[143]

After growing up in this environment of equality it was a shock for the
Untouchables to travel and live in situations away from the military
cantonments.

Ambedkar's biographer, Dhananjay Keer, writes of young Ambedkar's shock the
first time he travelled outside the military environment while he was in school.
He and his brother were travelling to meet his father in a distant village. At
the railway station, they hired a bullock cart to take them to the village,
but

[h]ardly had the cart gone a few yards when the god-fearing touchable Hindu
cartman, to his wrath, came to know that the well-dressed boys in his cart
were the accursed Untouchables! In a fit of rage he threw them out on the road
as one overturns the dust bins;for he felt they had polluted his wooden cart
and destroyed the purity of his domestic animals![144]

This was Ambedkar's first experience that forced him to confront his status
as an Untouchable. Life in the military cantonment had sheltered him from the
prejudice and discrimination for the early part of his life.

After retirement, there was a period of adjustment for Mahars who lived
outside the cantonment. Basham concludes:

As nearly as can be deduced from rather limited information, it would seem
that while actually in the army, or after retired or taking other employment,
while in contact with British employers and officials, the Mahar soldier was
not treated in any way differently from a soldier of higher caste. Once
retired and living in his native village, a Mahar soldier, although he might
have a relatively high status among the Mahar community and even among caste
Hindus, would nevertheless once again have to accept his untouchable status.[145]

The important point is, even after retirement, Mahars with a military
background still had access to the British government. The retired military
officers were an effective lobby for Mahar rights.

Retired officers also created a group of political leaders with access to the
Indian government. This was especially true near military cantonments in Poona,
Satara and Ahmednagar.[146]
Basham relates an incident where Mahar children were not being offered equal
educational opportunities. Local caste Hindus and low-level British education
officials refused the Mahar demands for Mahar boys to be integrated into classes
with caste-Hindu boys. The dispute was resolved in favor of the Mahars. Basham
argues that this demonstrates

they were seeking not just education for their sons, although this was
obviously important, but also an improvement in their social status. The fact
that many of these parents were retired officers, and therefore could
legitimately make a claim on the attention to government officials, indicates
the value of military service in this respect.[147]

Clearly, the type of access available to the soldiers, active or retired, was
unavailable to most Untouchables

All the benefits the Mahars received were the result of their ability to
develop a link with the British. This helped them overcome the obstacles erected
by the Hindu social system. Zelliot observes:

[I]t was their entry into the British army which proved significant for the
subsequent history of the Mahar movement. It is important to gauge this
significance. It consists not in any automatic elevation in the social
hierarchy through military service, which indeed is ruled out in a
hierarchical system governed by considerations of ascriptive status and ritual
purity. It rather consists in the fact that military service at such an early
date exposed them to British institutions much before the dissemination of
western culture took place on a large scale.

Such an exposure socialized them sufficiently early to the new political
order so that when new opportunities and alternatives became available, they
were found prepared to use them more effectively than those groups which did not
have this opportunity.[148]
Following the delistment of 1893, the Mahars would need all the access and
knowledge they had gained to overcome the impact of being refused service in the
Army.

The Fight For Re-enlistment

The Mahars did not give up their positions in the Army easily. The British
decision of Mahar "[d]elistment in 1893 had been a severe blow to them as a
community, not only threatening their economic status, but also (in their view)
giving official sanction to caste Hindu discrimination against them."[149]
Overcoming both of these threats was the focus of two different efforts to
petition the Government of India to reconsider its decision between 1894 and the
start of the first World War.

The Mahars used two different strategies to influence the government; with
both they tried to regain enlistment privileges in the army and an improved
social status. Zelliot maintains that these efforts "illustrate the importance
of army service to the Mahars. This was clearly the beginning of their efforts
to induce government to intervene on their behalf, and their questioning of
their traditional inferior status."[150]
In both instances, the movement was led by educated, former military
officers.

The first organized attempt was in April 1895. Some of the details of the
petition drive presented by Zelliot and Basham are speculative. Basham, who has
completed the most recent study, states it was originally presented to the
Viceroy, but was later returned for resubmission through the Bombay
Government.[151]
It appears that the petition was submitted by Gopal Baba Walangkar, a retired
military officer, on behalf of the Anarya Doshpariharak Mandali, the non-Aryan
committee for the rightings of wrongs, an Untouchable organization. Dr.
Ambedkar, following the death of his father, found a copy of the petition in his
papers. Ambedkar "believed that his father had obtained the assistance of
Justice M. B. Ranade in preparing the petition."[152]
The petition compares Mahar actions to those of the higher castes and requests
reinstatement in the military.

The petition's pleas were simple. The Mahars believed that, in 1859, the
Government had declared that the castes who fought loyally for the British were
to be given due preference for military enlistment. Therefore, they
demanded:

In view of that promise, Government should employ in civil, military and
police department without any discrimination these faithful and honest
persons. They should also be given education and proper opportunity for
suitable posts in the department.[153]

The case they presented for reinstatement was more complicated than their
demands. Much of their argument attempts to demonstrate that their
identification as Untouchables was a mistake.

The 1895 petition argues that the Mahars as a group who are actually of the
Kshatriya caste.[154]
This represents the Mahars attempt to change their position in the caste
structure by "Sanskritization."[155]
The petition states:

Our ancestors were Kshatriya. In about the year 1396 there was a great
famine for about 12 years which was called Durhavedi famine. That time our
ancestors survived by eating whatever they could find. Therefore, they were
considered low case under the Peshwa rule.

It continues by attacking the legitimacy of the higher castes. It claims,
"The so called high caste and pure people's ancestors were as degraded as our
people and were used [sic] to eat flesh of cow and beef. They wrote their own
religious scriptures." Finally, the petition provides a "creation myth" about
the high castes. It maintains:

The high caste people of the South are progeny of Australian Semitic
Anaryas and African Negroes whereas the high caste people from North are
mixture of several castes .... Several castes of foreign origin became high
caste Hindus by giving up beef-eating.

The Chitpavan Brahmins of Konkan came from the Jewish race. They fled from
Africa for fear of their lives by the invaders and their ship was wrecked
nearby Malabar coast. Their children and women drown and died in the sea.
Those men who survived, married the native low caste women.... [W]hen they
became rulers, they called themselves Brahmins.[156]

The document's tenor shows the importance of military service to the Mahars
and the use of Sanskritization tactics to show they were at least equal to the
alleged high castes.

This campaign was unsuccessful. The Mahars were unaware of the debate "over
recruitment policy or the acceptance of Lord Roberts views on martial races"
which was the prime component in the British decision. However, Basham shows
"the government of India took the petition seriously enough to request
information about the Koregaon monument from the government of Bombay
(presumably to verify the petitioners' claims). Eighteen months after the
initial submission of the petition, the Indian government replied that it was
"unable to rescind the orders which have been issued regarding the castes to be
admitted to the Bombay Army."[157]
Shortly after the turn of the century, a second attempt was organized.

The second major petition was submitted to the government three times between
1904 and 1910. The document's "signatories included forty-two military
pensioners" including Dr. Ambedkar's father. Basham's research found that
"[s]everal of the signatories had also written letters to newspapers or had
signed at least one other petition, suggesting a long-term commitment and a
willingness to agitate for change."[158]
This petition had a broader base of support than the one in 1895.

This campaign was more sophisticated than the first. The spokesman, Shivram
Janba Kamble, spoke English (Walangkar could not). More importantly, the
petition's "appeal for consideration was not on the basis of the Mahars' having
been demoted from Kshatriyahood, but on the grounds of former service, English
justice and human worth."[159]
This pragmatic approach attracted greater support than the earlier petition, and
used arguments that were later refined by Dr. Ambedkar. In fact, Ambedkar took
over leadership of the Mahars from Kamble.

The 1910 petition was more polite and less argumentative than the 1895
petition. The document states, "We do not aspire to high political privileges
and positions, since we are not educationally qualified for them, but humbly
seek employment in the lowest grades of the Public Service, in the ranks of
Police Sepoys and of soldiers in the Indian Army." It continued:

We are making no new demands; we do not claim employment in services in
which we have not been engaged before. Indeed, some few of our people do still
hold positions in the Police Force, and have acquitted themselves most
honourably. So also have our people been employed in the Indian Army from the
very commencement of the British Raj in our country, and they have risen to
the highest positions by their valour and good conduct.[160]

Despite the reasoned arguments, this petition demands, like the first, were
denied. The manpower demands of World War I had a greater effect, and beginning
in 1914 Mahars, again, were recruited into the Army and given their own
Regiment, the 111 Mahars. The Regiment's three battalions "were formed the
toward the end of the war, but they did not see action and their martial
qualities were untested."[161]
Shortly after the war, the Regiment was disbanded by the British "on the excuse
of the economy."[162]

More important, however, is that the petition drives provided an organization
for Dr. Ambedkar to use after the war to improve the social status of
Untouchables. Basham correctly concludes:

Military service had been a significant factor for the Mahars in two
respects. Education and skills acquired through military service created a
class of community leaders, and the wish to retain the social and economic
benefits derived from military service was a powerful incentive to organize
behind these leaders and work for a common goal. A high level of organization
and political activity in the Mahar community by the 1940s was therefore at
least in part a consequence of their military past.[163]

The long association with the military gave Mahars an issue to organize
around and the movement then worked to achieve more substantial achievements
than just military service.

Conclusion

The 120 years of service in the British military gave the Mahars excellent
skills. Basham concludes:

Mahar soldiers were able to establish a link with the most powerful
institution in India--the British Raj--and in some instances to use that link
to bypass local authorities. Military service was also a way to sever the ties
of village customary law which maintained the inferior status of the Mahars.
Other forms of employment could take the Mahar out of the village, but none
offered long-term financial security in the form of pensions.[164]

This case study shows how military service has assisted the Mahars to fight
the stigma of untouchability. Their positive experiences fighting with Shivaji
encouraged them to seek similar opportunities from the British. It is clear,
that in their service they received their most tangible benefits. Before
delistment, Mahars in the Bombay Army received a steady wage, housing, and
education. With this, many were able to retire with a pension, which, often,
eliminated the need to return to the traditional Mahar occupations following
their military service. These obvious benefits were eliminated following the
1893 decision.

However, military service still influenced Mahar life following delistment.
As Basham argues:

If the army system of education had produced no effects for the Mahars
other than to provide an appropriate environment for Ambedkar's early life
(since his father took a very strong interest in encouraging his sons'
education) this in itself would be a significant impact on the Mahar
community.[165]

Furthermore, the petition drives provided political organizations to press
for overcoming the stigma of Untouchability. There were other benefits that were
accrued, even if their requests for reinstatement were refused until the
beginning of the war. Kamble's work in Poona that formed the base for Ambedkar's
later political movements is the best example of this. Therefore, even after
military service was taken away from the Mahars, the traditions and accrued
benefits continued to be an advantage to this Untouchable community.

Epilogue

A Mahar Regiment was reformed in 1945 and has existed ever since. The
ceremonial Colonel of the Regiment is K. V. Krishna Rao, former Chief-of-Staff
of the Indian Army and current Governor of Jammu-Kashmir. The preface of the
Regimental History states:

Militarily, the Mahars faced the vicissitudes of fortune, but once the
Mahar Regiment was reborn in 1945, it came into its own after India became
free .... A three-battalion [one class] Regiment blossomed into a
eighteen-battalion Regiment with men from all classes and communities of the
country fused together to form a rich and radiant amalgam.[166]

The Regiment has taken part in all of India's major military operations since
1947. Just as the Mahars have survived and prospered, so has the Mahars'
military legacy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basham, Ardythe. "Army Service and Social Mobility: The Mahars of the Bombay
Presidency, with Comparisons with the Bene Israel and Black Americans." Ph.D.
diss., University of British Columbia, 1986.

Cohen, Stephen P. The Indian Army: Contribution to the Development of a
Nation 2d ed. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.